


Grandaddies of the Dead

by h311agay



Series: Essays for School [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Essay, Freeform, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 07:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h311agay/pseuds/h311agay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third Essay for English 11</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grandaddies of the Dead

Why is the public so fascinated in the genre of horror, whether written or played out on screen? People thrive on the thrill and chill that horror movies, fests, and books cause. The rush of adrenaline that pumps through your veins as you lean further off your seat and closer to the movie is a craving most people feel. People also use horror films as a great way to move further in a date or relationship. When watching a scary movie, someone is bound to jump or need comfort. What better way to get your arm around their shoulders than to console them? People are also subconsciously attracted to the horror, often finding the gore and gruesome images chilling and strangely cool. If it weren’t for the grandfathers of horror, Edgar Allen Poe and Alfred Hitchcock, many horror movies would lack that enticement they have acquired over the years. Hitchcock’s classic thriller _Psycho_ , much like Poe’s short stories, attracts readers with insane characters, shifting settings, and conflicts with the dead.

“The Black Cat” and _Psycho_ both portray insane characters who have lost touch with reality. In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Black Cat”, the narrator of the story is driven insane by his excessive drinking habit and an inability to control his anger. “My disease grew upon me, for what disease is like Alcohol!” (Poe 1) he says shortly before gouging out his beloved cat, Pluto’s, eye after a night of heavy alcohol consumption and a spark of anger. His insanity does not stop there, however, and a short time later, the narrator hangs the cat. This successfully kills Pluto. The night of, his house caught fire and after returning to look for any salvageable items, he is convinced that he sees a white outline of a cat against the scorched black wall that remained standing. He and his wife move and he brings home a new cat, much like Pluto except with a white splotch on his chest. He begins to hate the cat and believes he sees the shape of the gallows on its chest. He attempts to kill it, only to be stopped by his wife who he instead kills. Police come to investigate her disappearance and as they begin to leave, the narrator swears he can hear his wife’s screaming. The wall comes down to reveal the cat, yowling and mouth covered in the wife’s blood. The narrator believes the cat seduced him into murdering his wife. In Alfred Hitchcock’s _Psycho_ , Norman Bates is the insane character. Bates is the owner of Bate’s Motel off on an abandoned highway that Marion pulls into one night. While eating together, Norman tells her a foreshadowing quote. He said, “My hobby is stuffing things. You know—taxidermy” ( _Psycho_ ). We later discover that he has been keeping the body of his deceased mother in the fruit cellar of his house since she had died, stuffed and preserved just like the birds of prey Norman had in his parlor of the motel office. The psychologist, Dr. Fred Richmond, explained Norman’s insanity, “Matricide is probably the most unbearable crime of all... most unbearable to the son who commits it. So he had to erase the crime, at least in his own mind. He stole her corpse. A weighted coffin was buried. He hid the body in the fruit cellar. Even treated it to keep it as well as it would keep. And that still wasn't enough. She was there! But she was a corpse. So he began to think and speak for her, give her half his time, so to speak. At times he could be both personalities, carry on conversations. At other times, the mother half took over completely. Now he was never all Norman, but he was often only mother” ( _Psycho_ ). Norman himself killed His mother and her lover, but it was the Mother Side that killed the two missing girls, Marion, and Arbogast.

“The Cask of Amontillado” and _Psycho_ both shift from light, pleasurable settings to dark, gloomy ones. In Poe’s short story, the setting starts at a carnival celebrating what was known as All Hallow’s Eve and is now known as Halloween. It starts in a very pleasant and happy way, even whenever Montresor greats the man who has insulted him often, Fortunato. He described Fortunato as “[Wearing] motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-stripped dress and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells” (Poe 3). Montresor plans to kill Fortunato, however, and leads the man to his abode by tempting him with promises of Amontillado, an expensive wine made of almonds. When they arrive, the servants are out merry making and Montresor stops to try and convince Fortunato that they should return to the carnival because the catacombs are damp and Montresor values the other’s health. They continue on, anyways and the setting shifts drastically. No more are they surrounded by festivities and glee, but instead by gloom. Poe mentions that “The bones had been thrown down, and lay [haphazardly] upon the earth, forming a mound of some size” (Poe 4). It is in the very deepest part of the sepulcher that Montesor walls in Fortunato to slowly die. Likewise, in _Psycho_ the setting shifts drastically from light and pleasurable, to dark and gloomy. It starts out with Marion and Sam in a hotel room, romantic emotions running high, and multiple kisses in the short moment that we see them. Marriage is brought up and the air is happy. It still carries over when Marion returns to the office in which she works, where a millionaire flirts with her and explains how his young daughter is getting married. He is paying for a house with $40,000, in cash. Marion runs off with it and during a terrible storm, arrives at the Bate’s Motel. The setting quickly becomes ominous and unsettling. The area around and within the motel is empty, exempting Marion, Norman, and Norma. As Marion showers in the desolate motel, trying to wash away her guilt of stealing the money, Norman sneaks in and murders her. Later, when Norman is moving his mother to the fruit cellar, we discover just how gloomy the house is. The cellar is dark and dank, and when Marion’s sister runs down there, she finds the cadaverous body of Norma Bates. There is also a swamp behind the Bate’s motel where Norman dumps the bodies of his murders. The morass has a superfluous amount of dead trees and gloom surrounding it. It is practically deserted, no one thinking to look there until after Norman has admitted to the murders.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” And _Psycho_ both explore conflicts between the living and the dead. In Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is driven mad by an old man’s blind eye. He stalks him for seven days, watching him sleep. Poe writes, “Never before had I felt the extent of my own powers, I could hardly contain my feelings of sagacity. …to think that there I was, opening his door little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts” (Poe 6). It is not until after the narrator murders the old man that the true conflicts between the living and the dead arise. After flipping the bed over the man and asphyxiating him, the murderer chops him up and places him under the floor boards. The police come to investigate the screech and the narrator keeps them there for some time; he talks with them and entertains them. He begins to hear the sound of a heart-beat, claiming it to be the old man’s. It pushes him over the brink of insanity and he confesses to the police, tearing up the floor boards and screaming, “I admit the deed. Tear up the planks. It’s the beating of his hideous heart” (Poe8). The beating heart was not the old man’s but the murderer’s due to guilt and anxiety. Similarly in _Psycho_ , there is many a conflicts with the dead. After Norman killed his mother, he felt so guilty about it that he snatched her body and hid it in the house. When her corpse did not become enough to satisfy him of his mother still being alive he became her. Dr. Richmond best explains this when he says, “…In Norman's case, he was simply doing everything possible to keep alive the illusion of his mother being alive. And when reality came too close, when danger or desire threatened that illusion - he dressed up, even to a cheap wig he bought. He'd walk about the house, sit in her chair, speak in her voice. He tried to be his mother! And, uh... now he is,” ( _Psycho_ ). The conflict here is that the Norman Personality is battling with the Mother Personality and is losing. Norma Bates may be dead, but she is taking over her son’s head. She was a clingy, demanding mother who did not help Norman overcome his Oedipal Conflict. The psychologist continued, “You see, when the mind houses two personalities, there's always a conflict, a battle. In Norman's case, the battle is over... and the dominant personality [the mother] has won” ( _Psycho_ ). Norma Bates won her son’s mind and body and Norman Bate’s lost his battle.

            “Writing I learned from my schoolmaster; fear I learned from Edgar Allan Poe,” Alfred Hitchcock once remarked. Poe taught Hitchcock how to successfully design an insane character, whether it be Norman Bates or the narrator who killed his wife over a cat. Edgar Allan Poe’s works showed Alfred Hitchcock how to move through the settings, going from bright and light to gloom and doom. As Hitchcock’s literary hero, Poe even taught him how to make conflicts between the living and the dead. These two men successfully relay all three concepts and create spine-chilling horror that will stand against the test of time.

 

 

 

            Work Cited:

            Poe, Edgar Allan. The Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York:  Pocket Books, 1951.

            Psycho. Screenplay by Joseph Stefano. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Shamely Productions, 1960.


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